Terrible GTA performance

chris_uk333 · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:14

Just got GTA 4, running with an XFX 5850, AMD 1055t, 4GB ram...My FPS is around 17, and the game keeps stuttering. Any ideas whats going on?

SeraphX · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:15

turn the graphic settings down, namely shadows and draw distance

chris_uk333 · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:23

Hmm FPS improves a bit when i drop settings, but it stutters like crazy.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:26

What are your setting like in CCC? Make sure you disable AA, AF and Vsync or set them to application controlled, and make sure catalyst AI is set to advanced.

mame · 22 Dec 2010 at 17:47

That's how the game is

alex24 · 22 Dec 2010 at 17:48

Mine is the same, 40+FPS and still looks as though it stutters.

Weird thing, was smoother on my 775 setup ([email protected] and GTX280).

Blue160 · 22 Dec 2010 at 19:28

Yup. Terribly optimised game. Spent ages lowering settings till it was anywhere near acceptable. Stick with it though, the game itself is great.

chris_uk333 · 22 Dec 2010 at 20:29

Patched it which helped a lot. All on max (Terrain distance 50) 1920 x 1980, i benchmarked 49 fps. So pretty decent now.

FoxEye · 22 Dec 2010 at 21:00

Mine is normally smooth as silk, except occasional stuttering (more like jerking, really) which normally happens when it's raining in game.

My setup is only Athlon x3 435, 8gb ram, gtx460. I really can't fault the performance tho...

Sean_UK · 22 Dec 2010 at 21:15

For whatever reason GTAIV prefers high end Nvidia cards, considering the games CPU intensive it just goes to show how utterly terrible R* Toronto ported the game to PC. :rolleyes:

The latest patch really didn't help either; the new poorly optimised shadows are really harsh on performance...

With my current set up it runs fine, however on former build each patch caused performance to slowly decline.

phatboy · 23 Dec 2010 at 00:31

you done all the patches etc?

ThomasTheTankEngine · 23 Dec 2010 at 08:49

Sean_UK said:
For whatever reason GTAIV prefers high end Nvidia cards, considering the games CPU intensive it just goes to show how utterly terrible R* Toronto ported the game to PC. The latest patch really didn't help either; the new poorly optimised shadows are really harsh on performance...

With my current set up it runs fine, however on former build each patch caused performance to slowly decline.

I think what it really wants is more than 1gb of video memory. It shows you how much it needs in the graphics settings, and it goes over 1gb if you max everything out. I bet it runs well on 69**'s (assuming theres a driver it likes) and the 2gb 5*** cards.

Raumarik · 23 Dec 2010 at 08:56

jimbob27 said:
I think what it really wants is more than 1gb of video memory. It shows you how much it needs in the graphics settings, and it goes over 1gb if you max everything out. I bet it runs well on 69**'s (assuming theres a driver it likes) and the 2gb 5*** cards.

GTA4 is actually very CPU intensive, that's what limits most gamers more than the graphics card. It also loves quad cores, which weren't that common when it was released.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 23 Dec 2010 at 09:07

Halfmad said:
GTA4 is actually very CPU intensive, that's what limits most gamers more than the graphics card. It also loves quad cores, which weren't that common when it was released.

That's not really relavent for modern quad core systems like most of the people in this thread have.

The traffic density option is strongly linked to the cpu, and that has virtually no effect on FPS; max or min, it runs pretty much the same. The shadows option however, will give me about 20 fps each time I drop it down a notch.

The game is just badly optimised, especially with settings that exceed what the consoles can do.

AWPC · 23 Dec 2010 at 09:08

Its very poorly coded

Even on My Core i7-980x+GTX580 it has micro stutter @ max everything 1920x1200. The city scale & attention to detail is impressive but the actual gfx are pretty poor nowadays.............

To max everything out you need 1499MB VRam on your gfx card but even then it stutters from time to time!

Random Guy · 23 Dec 2010 at 09:36

Yep, the GTA4 engine is very shoddy on PC.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 23 Dec 2010 at 09:40

Yeah. I think it's very much linked to the performance of the consoles it was programmed for. If you've got less cpu power than them, then you're screwed.

If your pc is more poweful and you wack the settings right up, my guess is that's it's drawing shadows and stuff in all sorts of places where you'll never actually see them. Eg. you set the draw distance really high.... it's not just going to draw stuff on the street you're driving down, it'll be rendering stuff 3 streets across which you've got no chance of actually seeing through all the buildings.

unknownsock · 23 Dec 2010 at 13:47

jimbob27 said:
I think what it really wants is more than 1gb of video memory. It shows you how much it needs in the graphics settings, and it goes over 1gb if you max everything out. I bet it runs well on 69**'s (assuming theres a driver it likes) and the 2gb 5*** cards.

And that is a load of bull, any game that forces you choose certain settings never do it correctly.

I can play it on low or high settings @ 5292x1050 and my FPS is virtually the same. It's the CPU that matters.

snowdog · 23 Dec 2010 at 14:11

Traffic density on 20 or below.
It's 20 or 16 iirc on the consoles.

Shadows and traffic are the most harsh on performance in gta iv.

HAz · 23 Dec 2010 at 15:46

Get an xbox.

Even when i had my 5870 it runs and looks much better on my 36" tv from a xbox.